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History is like a clock, it tells you your time of day.

John Henrik Clarke

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John Henrik Clarke
Age: 83 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 1
Died: 1998
Died: July 16
Historian
Writer
Union Springs
Alabama
John Clarke
Clock
Tells
History
Time
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More quotes by John Henrik Clarke

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What example do you have of anything like the Pyramids outside of Africa? You have them in Mexico, but that can be traced to early African migration. So the African created mound culture.
John Henrik Clarke
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I think that Jesus-dependency has taken over our minds, and too many of our institutions.
John Henrik Clarke
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I say if black people don't unite and begin to support themselves, their communities and their families, they might as well begin to go out of business as a people. Nobody's going to have any mercy. And nobody's going to have any compunction about making slaves out of them.
John Henrik Clarke
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Our concept of beauty is taken from Hollywood, which is anti-black. We don't see ourselves as beautiful in most cases. Although we are naturally one of the most beautiful peoples out there, we don't see it. We don't get the point. Hollywood sets the standards.
John Henrik Clarke
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You look at a clock and it tells you it's eight o'clock, you know the number of hours that has been before eight you know the number of hours you've got after eight. You can now measure your time to see if you can get done a number of things you've got to get done. History serves the same purpose.
John Henrik Clarke
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If I lead the field in any way, it is in the area of curricula development, study guides and other teaching materials.
John Henrik Clarke
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What I have learned is that a whole lot of people with degrees don't know a damn thing, and a lot of people with no degrees are brilliant.
John Henrik Clarke
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The role of religions in the domination and destruction of African civilizations was ruthless... Islam was as guilty as all the rest.
John Henrik Clarke
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You walk out in the street, we don't know if we're going to get across. It's a test.
John Henrik Clarke
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To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.
John Henrik Clarke
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People rise and fall on the basis of the makings of institutions.
John Henrik Clarke
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There has been a struggle to reclaim the African self. That struggle has been on the part of a minority of dedicated African-Americans who never gave up our African identity at no time during our stay here.
John Henrik Clarke
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Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind.
John Henrik Clarke
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I don't attend any particular church now. I don't believe in denominations, nor do I believe in organized religion.
John Henrik Clarke
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The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word 'Africa.' According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place called Europe.
John Henrik Clarke
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Anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their God, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the 'deity.'
John Henrik Clarke
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I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.
John Henrik Clarke
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In a matrilineal society, a woman has basic rights that no one has to grant her but you can't take it away from her because the society is based on the concept that the lifegiver is equal to those she gave the life to. And that will remain... until you find a pregnant man.
John Henrik Clarke
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The one thing you never integrate at the ruin of your own pleasure is your institutions.
John Henrik Clarke
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In the African matrilineal society, the lineage of the bloodline comes down through the female side. The Arabs who invaded East Africa and other parts of Africa reversed it to the patrilineal where everything comes down through the male side and the woman has no basic rights except that which the male is willing to grant her.
John Henrik Clarke